Blessed by the Potato

“What happened to the towel?”

“I used it every day for a week and a half and then it didn’t come fully dry. Now I have a new towel.”

“Yes… but it was in a ball in the bathroom and now it’s gone. Where did it go?”

“I put it in the laundry hamper.”

“That’s what I wanted to know, not the history of it… why would you give me the whole life story of the towel?”

“Seemed like the right response.”

“I don’t know how I could have more precisely asked that question.”

“Our daughter is going to be so good at robotics.”

When searching for industry data reports for a project I saw one on socks and couldn’t help but download it.

“Clothing and textiles” too broad for you? Well, you’re in luck my dear, as the US Census Bureau separately tracks sock production, shipments, and inventory levels. Yes, you can obtain and analyze data on trends in mens’ socks, womens’ socks, and infant booties, broken down by material (are wool socks making a comeback against cotton and man-made fibres?) with quarterly resolution.

“Ah-ha!” you’re thinking, if you haven’t fallen asleep entirely, “This must be some historical throwback, like how the US patent office has those categories for patents on shoeing horses and mail delivery by train car that you talked about before.” And while that is a perfectly reasonable hypothesis, this granularity in sock production data collection started in 2004 as annual data. Then, with what must have been tremendous demand for information on how a nation kept its feet warm, dry, and blister-free, the Census Bureau started collecting quarterly data in 2006.

The world truly is a ridiculous place.